There Was Language Inside Her,
and She Slipped


She slipped and she slipped, so moonshine
wove words by her, in day. 

And she did not hold suffering,
which, she understood, craved all this,
which, she understood, accepted it.

She slipped and understood nothing;
she did not discover genius, created no masterpiece,
leaving wine for language.
She slipped.

There came a leaving, and they came to go,
and all the going left.

I slip, you slip. The silkworm slips too,
and the weaving there says She slips.

O Eli, the lie, the mine of yours?
where did the path move curving to mine?
Yours that slips while I slip lipping, the slip.

On our thigh’s sigh
the burning rose silk
wove to fabricate.

Deborah Poe is the author of the poetry collection Our Parenthetical Ontology (CustomWords 2008) as well as chapbooks from Furniture_Press and Stockport Flats Press. She recently won New York State's Thayer Fellowship of the Arts (2008) in creative writing.

Deborah's writing is forthcoming or has appeared in Ploughshares , The Portland Review , Denver Quarterly , Copper Nickel , Drunken Boat, FOURSQUARE Editions, and other journals as well as in the anthologies Fingernails Across the Chalkboard: Poetry and Prose on HIV/AIDS From the Black Diaspora (Third World Press 2007) and A Sing Economy (Flim Forum 2008). Two of Deborah's poems were nominated for Pushcart Prizes in 2005 and 2006.

Deborah's current projects include Elements --her poetry collection based on the periodic table--and a short fiction collection entitled Event Landmarks .

Deborah was born a military brat in Del Rio, Texas and has lived throughout the United States and abroad. After her undergraduate studies, she worked for almost ten years in businesses including hostel clerk and bartender in Paris, environmental activist in Austin, a waitress in Taos, engineering assistant at Oregon Steel Mill in Portland, editor and international program manager in Seattle, and educator in Washington state and New York. Deborah teaches at Pace University. Her doctoral degree in English Language and Literature is from Binghamton University, and her Master of Arts is from Western Washington University.

Deborah Poe is the author of the poetry collection Our Parenthetical Ontology (CustomWords 2008) as well as chapbooks from Furniture_Press and Stockport Flats Press. She recently won New York State's Thayer Fellowship of the Arts (2008) in creative writing.

Deborah's writing is forthcoming or has appeared in Ploughshares , The Portland Review , Denver Quarterly , Copper Nickel , Drunken Boat, FOURSQUARE Editions, and other journals as well as in the anthologies Fingernails Across the Chalkboard: Poetry and Prose on HIV/AIDS From the Black Diaspora (Third World Press 2007) and A Sing Economy (Flim Forum 2008). Two of Deborah's poems were nominated for Pushcart Prizes in 2005 and 2006.

Deborah's current projects include Elements --her poetry collection based on the periodic table--and a short fiction collection entitled Event Landmarks .

Deborah was born a military brat in Del Rio, Texas and has lived throughout the United States and abroad. After her undergraduate studies, she worked for almost ten years in businesses including hostel clerk and bartender in Paris, environmental activist in Austin, a waitress in Taos, engineering assistant at Oregon Steel Mill in Portland, editor and international program manager in Seattle, and educator in Washington state and New York. Deborah teaches at Pace University. Her doctoral degree in English Language and Literature is from Binghamton University, and her Master of Arts is from Western Washington University.